On the other hand, the French Marshal was taking a terrible risk also. Supposing Wellington had been leading his whole force—deducting Hill—for a resolute attack on the Santarem positions, which was the most probable course for him to adopt, he might have had not only the 16,000 men that he had actually brought forward, but Leith and Cole with 11,000 more, and Picton and the other 20,000 men left in the Lines, a force, if the cavalry be thrown in, of full 50,000 sabres and bayonets. If Wellington had left Craufurd and Pack to block the marshy southern exit from Santarem, which was as difficult for Reynier as for his adversaries, he might have thrown 40,000 men into the empty space of twelve miles between Reynier and Junot, have driven away the latter’s 11,000 men, and surrounded Reynier’s 13,000 in Santarem. Ney could not have got up in time to prevent this. The 2nd Corps would either have had to surrender, for it had hardly any food, or to cut its way out with disastrous losses[563].
Reynier saw this perfectly, and was in an agony of mind on the 18th and 19th. He wrote urgent appeals to Masséna, for permission to abandon Santarem on the former day, pointing out that if his front was practically inaccessible, because of the swamps, his right might be turned by the upper Rio Mayor, where he had only a single regiment in observation, to face what might be an overwhelming strength of British troops, who might be preparing to cut in between him and Junot. He sent all his train, sick, and wounded to Golegão[564], and besought leave to follow them. When he received a peremptory reply, to the effect that he was to hold Santarem to the last, he came to the conclusion that he was to be sacrificed in order to allow the other two corps to escape unmolested. When Pack advanced on the 19th he sent the report that he was turned by 10,000 British troops—Pack had but 3,000 Portuguese—and that Clausel with Junot’s nearest division was too far off to succour him. He prepared to suffer a disaster, and to die fighting[565]. He ordered his troops to surround Santarem, in rear as well as in front, with a double line of abattis, and continued to strengthen and repair its old walls.
Nothing, therefore, could exceed Reynier’s relief when Pack and Craufurd halted, and Spencer did not move at all, after the firing had begun upon the 19th. On the next morning the British army was still stationary, save that a cavalry reconnaissance, pushed northward from Pack’s position on the upper Rio Mayor, discovered Junot’s outposts in the direction of Alcanhede and Pernes, and reported to Wellington that the enemy was in strength, with all arms, in this direction. Leith’s division came up this morning, raising the British force to 21,000 men, but this, as the Commander-in-Chief now saw, was not sufficient to enable him to deal with two corps d’armée, of which one was in an inaccessible position and now stockaded up to the eyes. He halted, and sent, very tardily, orders for Cole to join in haste, and for Campbell’s division to come up from the Lines. But even thus he was too weak to strike. Hill was now at Almeirim, half way to Abrantes on the other side of the Tagus. Fane had actually entered Abrantes, and sent news that the enemy was making no forward movement from the Zezere. Thus at last Wellington discovered that he must have practically the whole French army in his front, while his own forces were in a state of terrible dispersion.
On the 21st he wrote a dispatch to Lord Liverpool which shows that he had given up all intention of pushing Masséna further. ‘Although the enemy have moved large bodies of troops eastward from Santarem, I have not heard that any large body has crossed the Zezere.... Their army being collected between Santarem and the Zezere, they are in a situation to be able to maintain themselves in their strong position till the reinforcements, which I know are on the frontier, can join them. For this reason, and because I am unwilling to expose to the inclemencies of the weather a larger body of troops than is absolutely necessary to press upon the enemy’s rear, and to support my advanced guard, I have kept in reserve a considerable proportion of the allied army—some of them still in their cantonments in the Lines, our fortified position. I have ordered General Hill to halt the head of his corps at Chamusca [on the other side of the Tagus, fifteen miles south of Abrantes] till the enemy’s movements have been decided.... The rain, which has been very heavy since the 15th, has so completely filled the rivulets and destroyed the roads, that I have hitherto found it impossible to dislodge the enemy from his position at Santarem, by movements through the hills on his right flank. Possibly the bad state of the roads has also been the cause of his remaining at Santarem so long.... The enemy’s army may be reinforced, and they may again induce me to think it expedient, in the existing state of affairs in the Peninsula, to resume my positions [the Lines]. But I do not believe that they have it in their power to bring such a force against us as to render the contest a matter of doubt[566].’
In a supplementary dispatch, dated the same day, Wellington adds: ‘At first I thought the enemy were off, and I am not quite certain yet that they are not going.... I am convinced that there is no man in his senses, who has ever passed a winter in Portugal, who would not recommend them to go now, rather than to endeavour to maintain themselves upon the Zezere during the winter, or than attack our position, whatever may be the strength of their reinforcements.’
There were, indeed, men in the French camp who advised Masséna to continue his retreat, but he had no intention of taking up a timid policy after braving so many passed dangers. He had resolved to maintain himself between Santarem and the Zezere, and to call down Drouet and other reinforcements[567], in the hope that, ere the winter was over, the Emperor might find means to strengthen him to a force which, with the co-operation of Soult from Andalusia, would enable him finally to resume the offensive, and make a second and more formidable attack upon the Lines. In adopting this resolve he was, though as yet he knew it not, carrying out the instructions which the Emperor was at this very moment (November 22) dictating to Foy at Paris. But Wellington had not written at random when he reminded Lord Liverpool of the terrors of a Portuguese winter, and in the end the Prince of Essling was forced to begin on the 1st of March, with under 40,000 men of his original force, the retreat which he might have commenced on November 20 with over 50,000[568].
The scheme for starving out the French, which Wellington had devised early in 1810, and begun to execute in September, was now transferred to a different area. Masséna had been able to endure for a month in front of the Lisbon Lines: the question now was whether he would be able to live so long in the land between the Rio Mayor and the Zezere. Wellington could not be sure of his data, in calculating the day when exhaustion would once more compel the French to shift their ground. It was only certain that the plain of Golegão, and the Thomar-Torres Novas country, had not been devastated by the Portuguese government even with the same energy that they had displayed in the Lisbon Peninsula. And there, as the British Commander-in-Chief complained, not half the necessary work had been done. Yet something had certainly been accomplished; the population had nearly all been withdrawn, the mills destroyed, the corn buried or sent over the Tagus. Trusting to these facts, and to the rains and frosts of the oncoming winter, Wellington hoped that Masséna would finally be reduced to a disastrous retreat by sheer privation. ‘Though it is certainly astonishing that the enemy have been able to remain in this country so long, and it is an extraordinary instance of what a French army can do[569].’
Resolved to take no further offensive action, and to let famine do its work, Wellington, on November 24, gave orders for the army to draw back and go into winter quarters, leaving only Craufurd and Pack in touch with the enemy in front of Santarem, and Spencer in support of them at Cartaxo. Of the other divisions, Hill remained behind the Tagus at Chamusca and Almeirim, with his own troops and Hamilton’s Portuguese. Picton and the 3rd Division retained their old post at Torres Vedras, with Coleman and Alex. Campbell’s Portuguese near them. Cole remained at Azambuja, in rear of Spencer. Leith was sent back to Alcoentre, Campbell’s 6th Division was placed at Alemquer, behind Leith. Le Cor’s Portuguese stayed at Alhandra, within the Lines.
‘The army thus placed,’ writes D’Urban, the Quarter-Master-General, on this day, ‘at once takes care of Abrantes (by means of Hill), observes the enemy at Santarem (with Craufurd and Pack), has a division on the higher Rio Mayor road to turn the enemy’s right, if this become expedient (Leith’s to wit), and still “appuis” itself on the Lines, its retreat into which is secured by its echelloned position. Means are ready to pass General Hill back to the right bank of the Tagus, with such celerity, that his divisions can be counted upon for the order of march or battle on this side of the river as certainly as if he were already there[570].’
Masséna, on the other hand, also remained nearly quiescent for many days, the only important change which he made in the cantonments of his army being that he moved in Clausel’s division closer to Santarem, to fill the dangerous gap between the 2nd and 8th Corps, which had existed on November 18. On the 22nd and 23rd he pushed forward, against Pack’s Portuguese and Anson’s light cavalry, a considerable force, consisting of Clausel’s whole division and six squadrons from the 8th Corps, and General Pierre Soult with two cavalry regiments and three battalions from the 2nd Corps. After some lively but bloodless skirmishing, the allied troops retired behind the Rio Mayor, evacuating the village of Calares beyond the stream, and drawing in their cavalry pickets, which had hitherto held some ground on the further bank. This affair confirmed Wellington in his conclusion that nearly the whole French army was now concentrated on the Santarem-Pernes line, and made him more reluctant than ever to take the offensive.